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Creationism in the dock

By Ian Anderson

Melbourne

A PROMINENT Australian geologist has sold his house to finance a legal
battle against a creationist who claims that Noah’s Ark has been found in
Turkey. The case is believed to be the first in which a mainstream scientist has
taken a creationist to court over the interpretation of scientific data to
support a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Ian Plimer, head of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of
Melbourne, alleges that videos, tapes and literature sold by an organisation
called Ark Search, based in Canberra, are “misleading and deceptive”, and
therefore in breach of Australia’s Trade Practices Act. He also questions the
validity of the doctorate held by Ark Search’s founder, Allen Roberts of Sydney.
The case, which is expected to last a month, is scheduled to begin on 7 April in
the Federal Court in Sydney, and will be heard by a single judge.

Roberts gained international media attention in September 1991 when he was
held captive by Kurdish guerrillas while in eastern Turkey. Roberts claims that
the remains of Noah’s Ark lie at a spot some 20 kilometres from the summit of
Mount Ararat, in a formation that he argues contains petrified wood, fossilised
animal droppings, rusted brackets and rivets, and lines of iron deposits
indicating the ribbing of an ancient vessel. Plimer, who has visited the site,
says these claims are false, and argues that the structure is nothing more than
a block of rock brought down in a mudslide from a glacial lake higher in the
Kurdish mountains.

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Plimer also intends to challenge Roberts’s academic credentials. In Ark
Search’s literature, Roberts is described as having a doctorate in Christian
education from the Freedom University. With the help of Eugenie Scott, director
of the US National Center for Science Education in Berkeley, California, Plimer
claims to have tracked down this university, which is located behind a church in
Jacksonville, Florida. “It gives out degrees to those who want to tout
creationism to the unsuspecting public,” Plimer claims.

Other creationist groups, some of which also dispute Roberts’s claim to have
found Noah’s Ark, are distancing themselves from Ark Search. “The case doesn’t
involve anyone in the mainstream creation science movement,” says Carl Wieland,
head of the Creation Science Foundation in Brisbane, which has links to the
Institute for Creation Research in San Diego.

However, Plimer also intends to challenge the evidence used by all creation
scientists to support their central beliefs—in particular that the Earth
was created between 6000 and 10 000 years ago and that, 4000 years ago, a flood
wiped out all existing life except the animals saved by Noah in his Ark. “For
what the creationists say to be true, you would have to discard all geology,
astronomy, physics and biology,” says Plimer.

During the flood, Plimer argues, the weight of water needed to
submerge the continents—about 4.4 billion cubic kilometres—would
have shifted the Earth out of its orbit. To provide enough rainfall, he adds,
the atmosphere would have to have been 99.9 per cent water vapour—making
it impossible to breathe.

Plimer’s witnesses will come from the worlds of science and
religion. They include Edwin Byford, the Anglican rector of Broken Hill in New
South Wales, who holds an honours degree in physics. He disputes the claims made
by creation scientists on theological grounds. “They say that science can
demonstrate the creative activity of God,” says Byford. “Science can’t do
that.”

In a bizarre twist to the case, Plimer will also be joined in court by a
former creationist. David Fasold of San Diego, a former merchant seaman, alleges
that Ark Search used drawings from his book, The Ark of Noah, without
permission.

Roberts declines to comment on Plimer’s action. “Let the case
reveal what is necessary to reveal,” he says.

Plimer and Roberts have been at loggerheads since 1992, when Roberts began a
lecture tour of Australia to raise funds for Ark Search. Plimer was ejected from
three of the lectures when he tried to ask questions. In May 1992, Roberts
issued a defamation writ after Plimer attacked him on a Melbourne radio station.
This case is due be heard in June by a judge of the Supreme Court in the state
of Victoria. Eight other defamation writs have been served on Plimer by
creationist groups in Australia and the US—although these have since been
withdrawn. “I got sick of being sued,” Plimer says. “Instead, I decided to go on
the attack.”

Plimer claims to have spent more than A&dollar;300 000 on legal fees in his
various battles with creationists, financed in large part by the sale of his
house. Other funds have come from the Australian Skeptics, a group which opposes
creationism. “His tenacity is remarkable,” says Scott, who will appear as a
witness for Plimer. “People of lesser grit would have given up.”